Dollar Tree Crayon Testing

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

Having kids means having crayons all over the freaking place. People don't give much thought to the crayons they get but enjoying a good coloring session with my daughter means dealing with the breadth and depth of crayon industry and either enjoying or hating the experience.

Today I will review the 3 main brands available at Dollar Tree. This review is mainly for my sake but I thought I'd share in the fun.

Here we go:

The king of crayons is of course Crayola brand. At Dollar Tree you get 16 of these bad boys for a buck. Playskool is next up at a whopping 26 crayons for a dollar and finally Jot brand blows it out with 48 crayons! Playskool is known for many things but crayons is not one of them. They have been producing toys forever but I guess as many companies do, they license their brand to companies that make other things. Jot is the main brand of most of Dollar Tree's office supplies. Let's look at the different Red crayons first:

Both Crayon and Playskool go through the effort of naming the crayons and giving them the appropriate colored wrapping. Jot doesn't even bother. I guess this is where you are saving money. All the Jot crayons have a orange-ish color wrapping with no color names. In order to find 'Red' I had to compare 3 different colors that I though were close to red to find it. So that's a little bit of a bummer but does it really matter in the long run? Proly not. Let's draw a line:

We have Crayola ontop, followed by Playskool, and finally on bottom is Jot. At this point I am surprised at how well Jot is performing. I am figuring out that the cheaper the crayon is, the more waxy chunks are left behind. Crayola has the fewest, then Jot and finally Playskool. My next picture shows this in greater detail:

The Crayola brand (left) has a nice coverage and deep color, the Playskool is a hot mess that just smears the way around with not real coverage and finally Jot does a nice job but the color isn't as deep. Way to go Jot! Here are the same tests in blue:

Same results as the red crayon. So my summary:

Crayon is still the tops and a close 2nd place is Jot! The colors are not a rich but they will do just fine. The only other issue I have with Jot is the fragility of the crayons. The Playskool brand can be chunked in the trash. The wax is cheap or something. I realize they are 'washable' so maybe that's why they aren't as good, but any crayon is washable if you think about it. I won't mention that Playskool has asbestos in them or something...
Jot must be able to afford to make such a great deal with the savings of not printing the names on the crayons or having colored wrappers. Jot has a sharpener built in as well!

Walmart Walk 1/8/20

Just finding some stuff at Walmart:

 

Lanard (who makes the cheap knock off G.I. Joe has been getting some real licenses lately. They got Kong, Jumanji, and now Aliens! These are existing men from their other sets, as well as the 'power suit' but the aliens and the vehicle are new. It's kinda impressive but still seem pretty cheap. You can read more about my Lanard thoughts here on my Army Men reviews. 

 

Seems like Hot Wheels got cheap here. The middle wheel is not real. The design just looks sloppy. I appreciate what they were tying to do here, but it came off poorly.

 

What?! Bleccch.

Tuesday's Junk

• Our house was invaded by flies and it was a royal pain. I tried the trap that you fill with water and it stinks and that lures them but it didn't work. what worked best was putting a mouse sticky trap on the window seals. That caught them all!
• I HATE the dual McDonalds drive thru lanes. People just ignore the proper flow of traffic (aka, the lines on the ground) and skip others. Wataburger and ChickFilA do the whole dual lane thing right.
• I was pumping gas and someone came up to me. This has happened to me many times in the past and I hate it. People asking for money while I am pumping gas. HOWEVER this time a guy comes up to me asking for gas... complete with gas can in hand. Perfect. This guys is boss level. I happily give him some gas. Dude is smart.

Wednesday Thoughts

• Remember when the whole 'PC' thing started in the 90's? By today's standards it was SUPER TAME. People just assume ruin your life nowadays if you say the wrong thing.
• Why do those little soap bottles you buy for your house have a hose that doesn't reach the bottom of the bottle? You wind up wasting 1/10 of the bottle cause of that.
• I've been into 40's music for several years now. I listen to it at work all day, everyday. I just can't stand 99% of modern music past 1988. A special thanks to 40's Junction on SiriusXM.

Things the kid says

You know how kids mangle words until they figure out things a bit better. Here are a few choice ones my 3 year old says:

• Hand Sampatizer
• Chopstick
• Mopeter (Thermometer or Monitor)
• Domato Soup
• Vegables
• Dr. Susan (Dr. Suess)
• Smanwich

Whatever your opinion... there is still hope for this nation

So Trump won.
Hurray for the little guy!

Why do I say that? I'll tell you why...

This election still proves that the PEOPLE'S voice still works in this nation. Even when media/entertainment/global voices go after someone and prop the person they like up it all still comes down to the individuals in this nation.

Like Trump or hate Trump, the structure that the founding father's built is still works like a charm.

I will give Trump the benefit of the doubt as he starts out... Just like I gave Obama after he won (even though I thought Obama didn't have enough experience and I didn't vote for him).

I didn't like the way he ran this nation but I didn't act like a baby and say things like 'he's not my president'.

Don't act so surprised...

So yesterday all over the news was the"shocking" story of how Trump would not back Paul Ryan or even John McCain....
...
...
... really?

This is neither shocking nor surprising since Trump is WHERE HE IS because of voter disdain for the establishment.

This falls right in line with his platform.

Tuesday Stuff

• Just got back from Walt Disney World this week. This is the 5th Disney trip in the last 2 years. I think we are done for a while (with a baby on the way).
• Did you know that all the US flags up and down Main Street USA at Disney are not real? If you have a flag you have to either take it down at night or have it lit at night. To get around this, the flags on main street have a missing stripe or star. Clever...
• One final word on Disney. If you ever go, follow this SUPER IMPORTANT advice: For each day you plan on being in the parks, take a day off in between to hang out relaxing. Every time we go we are burning the candle at both ends and we need a vacation after our vacation.
• I'm not sure why the price of gas went back up, the price of an barrel of oil is still super low.
• I got a booth at Ushicon this last weekend in Round Rock. Small convention but I did pretty good. It's nice to actually make money at smaller conventions.
• I was thinking about closing up business once again at the end of the year. Typically, it appears this will be a first year with the business showing a profit.

Monday Thoughts

• At Sams they were air fresheners called 'Life Scents'. Ewwwwww.
• Once A.I becomes a reality, I think the first real practical use (to help humanity) would be to use them in stop lights at intersections... think about it. How much more efficient and speedy would it be?! Do it!
• Someone was having fun with the dinosaurs at Walmart...

• We got my Wife's cousin an At-At for Christmas... and the circle continues...

• This is the static warning at Costco's gas pumps... very artsy... 

Beef Jerky, Chocolates, Nuts, Oh my!

No, this is not a paid advertisement. I just love this place and have to tell you about it. When my wife and I go to Oklahoma to visit Choctaw Casino we make a stop just inside the Oklahoma border just North of Dennison (Texas) to a place called the Peanut Shoppe. Oh man!

They have fudge, peanuts of every kind, chocolate, and mixture of all those together in various formats. They have candy, jellies, and (my favorite) beef jerky.

The beef jerky is what it is all about for me. It is one of the top 2 beef jerkies I have ever tried. One year at work my co worker and me kept a log on a whiteboard of various beef jerkies we would go out and find. We would rate them. The top 2 on the list were The Peanut Shoppe's jerky and Clint and Sons Black Label jerky.

Anyway, I thought I just put a bug in your ear if you are looking on loading up on goodies, try this place out. They have a website so you can check out their stuff and order online too BUT it's best to just call them up and order over the phone. The beef jerky is NOT listed on their site so you have to ask for it via phone.

http://www.thepeanutshoppe.com/

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

The catch up post...


It's been a while, eh? Strangely not much has changed since my last post (of un-substance) back a little more than a year ago. Even then, that post didn't say much other than monkey's are cool. Here is what has happened:

1. Finished up some botched oral surgery pain (thank goodness for steroids)!
2. Went to Disneyland last May.
3. Visited family in Denver in July.
4. Had a Kickstarter for a Zombie game Chris and I made (it failed).
5. Went to Disney World October (I'm still working on a recap post on my AccordingToWhim blog.
6. Got irritated at how Blogger is messing up my post formatting.
7. Got a promotion at work and started working in Fort Worth.
8. Got another promotion at work and moved back to working in Decatur.
9. Started a vending machine business.
10. Got so irritated at the Dallas Comicon people (my 2nd biggest set of events for my business) that I swore them off completely and don't do their shows anymore.
11. Chris and I did several shows for the business through out the first of the year but they ALL stunk (except AnimeFest). We have abandoned the idea of doing tons of shows (since we loose money). We did have nice trip to Arkansas for a couple of shows though.
12. Started using a Wells Fargo Mortgage Rewards credit card for ALL my needs (and have nicely racked up some mortgage credits).
13. Took my mom along with us to Holiday in the Park at Six Flags last year. First time she has been there in... idk, 30 years?
14. I started collecting (digitally) all the Disney Park audio. It's become an obsession!

I'm sure there was tons of other little things but those were the biggies.

Secret of Monkey Island Gifs

So I was digging through some old discs and found these gems. I got these off the interwebs many many moons ago. Enjoy!

Three-headed monkey

Herman Toothrot

Monkey Dancing

 

Monkey Swinging

Murray the talking head

The Navigating Head

The Governers

Stan

 

 

Just a static shot... beautiful.

Humm. Getting a Pirates of the Caribbean vibe here...

Who can resist these fantastic graphics?

Some Harry Potter 'questions'

There are plot holes so large you could drive a truck through them. Here are a few in 'question format':

• If Fudge would not believe Harry in the Goblet of Fire that Voldermort was back, why not just look into his memory (like Harry and Dumbledore do on many occasions to many different people's memories)?
• Why didn't Harry just kill Voldermort on the many occasions when he had the chance? Harry knew what the score was and that nothing would end till one of the them was dead.
• When Harry and Dumbledore apperate back at the castle after Dumbledore is weakened and they heard others coming (and Dumbledore seemed to already know what was going to happen)... why didn't they apperate back out?
• That bothers me too. Dumbledore always acted as if his death was apart of a plan and you never really knew if he died or not cause of the way he kept talking. In the end he did die and for no apparent purpose or plan. It was kinda dumb.
• If the luck potion and the timeturner were both so powerful why weren't they used at REALLY critical moments of Voldermort's rise? For that matter why didn't Dumbledore keep the Sorcerer's stone (or a potion of it) too?

I understand these were 'kids' books written by an a first time writer but there were some big holes there...

Funny things my mom says...

• DW-40 = WD40
• UBS = USB
• On the line = Online
• Matt = Nathan

Friday Thoughts

• You know, Harry Potter is all bunk... Given the description of what 'types' of people go into each house JK Rowling jumped the shark when she made Hermione (obviously should have gone into Ravenclaw), Neville and Ron (should have been Hufflepuff) go into Griffyndor. BUNK.
• Harry's aging in the movies disturbed me too. They really should have made an effort to make these films closer together.

Spring is in the air

• I got Poison Oak REALLY bad on my arm last week and it is only now finally going away. (slowly). It happens every year when I do the first yard work of the year.
• In May Chris and I are running a KickStarter project for a board game we are making called Rise of the Rock Star. Go check it out.
• I'm working all the way up in Brideport now and won't be back in the metroplex (proper) until October. The drive is a beating.
• Home Depot's appliance department has really shrunk lately. We went to blow a couple of grand there the other day and we couldn't find ANYTHING we liked, there was little to choose from.

Friday Thoughts

• I figured it out. If you look at the history books you will find Democrats were the race-hatin' whites who fought desegregation. Eventually human rights won out and there was nothing Democrats could do to stop it. HOWEVER, in their defeat they figured out a way to keep those races beneath their jack boots... government assistance.
• The Democrat party began with the hand outs in the name of 'kindness', keeping an already beaten race dependant on their 'white overlords'. In the guise of helping they have reduced a race of people to dependants.
• Meanwhile the Democrats paint Rebublicans as heartless when Republicans simply want more people on their own two feet (having jobs, paying taxes, etc).

Monday Thoughts

• We bought a house. We are now waiting on all that tedious paperwork to go through. Ugh.
• I will be glad to get out of a mobile home but will not be glad that I have virtually no yard. What ever will I do with my free time?!
• The new house is in Keller (North Fort Worth actually) so a lot of what I talk about Decatur-wise will become Keller-wise.
• Oh yeah, the only problem... we haven't sold our current house yet.
• My realtor is working on that but we have had a ton of showings in the last week alone.
• Have you 'liked' your local emergency scanner on Facebook (most cities/areas have one). Ours is called DFW scanner and it tells you about all the emergency stuff going on in the area. Cool.
• Well, it looks like we are finally getting some cold weather. It's only the middle of November.
• We DO need at least 3 days of sold below 20 tempatures this Winter, otherwise we will be overrun with bugs again. The grasshopper plague this year was BAD.

Friday Thoughts

• What can I say... against all logic this nation re-hired the worst employee of all time.
• All of Washington is the problem with this nation. The President is the biggest target but it is all of those power hungry people up there. They don't want to loose their power and will do whatever it takes to keep it.
• At this point we can only hope the Federal government will collapse under it's own weight and the State governments will step in to run things until sense and order return.
• All that has to happen is that China says 'enough is enough' and stops loaning us money and requires repayment. The shit will truly hit the fan when it does.
• I will try to move on from this point, but it will be hard.
• At the end of the day all that matters to me is how well someone performs in their job. I assumed that the louse in the White House would be evicted for poor performance but the US doesn't care about that any more. We are truly lost then.

Wednesday Thoughts

• Yep, it's Halloween time.. that means you have to watch this bit of GREATNESS!
• I am 99.9% sure that the delay in California's jobs numbers (right after the 2nd Presidential debate) was totally rigged.
• I am 99.9% sure that the jobs numbers will be delayed again on Friday because of the storm.
• That with the magic reduction in the price of gas leads me to believe that this election is totally rigged.
• I remember saying that Obama was campaigning like he was a candidate and not an incumbent and it STILL appears that way.
• So now according to the major polling companies (Rasmussen and Gallup) Romney is in the lead. Just last week the left was touting these polls as being a true representation of how the election would play out. I wonder what they think now?
• Now on to darker thoughts...
• If Obama is re-elected I am confident that the Federal Government will collapse in on itself through over spending. I don't see this as effecting the states all that much. I for one will be looking forward to this. Perhaps we can put things right and be responsible and put Government in it's rightful place.